Directors’ 10 Greatest Films of All Time by Sight and Sound

"The ten best movies of all time, as chosen by 358 directors including Woody Allen, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Quentin Tarantino, the Dardenne brothers, Terence Davies, Guillermo del Toro, Martin Scorsese, Olivier Assayas, Michael Mann, Guy Maddin, Francis Ford Coppola, Mike Leigh, Aki Kaurismäki…"

- Sight and Sound


Weight: 80


Detractions

  1. Voted on by industry employee(s) (-20)

Films (10)

1. Tokyo Story

Directed by Yasujirô Ozu | 136 min | 1953

An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city; but the children have little time for them.


2. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Directed by Stanley Kubrick | Rated G | 149 min | 1968

Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial object buried beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer H.A.L. 9000, sets off on a quest.


3. Citizen Kane

Directed by Orson Welles | 119 min | 1941

Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.


4.

Directed by Federico Fellini | 138 min | 1963

A harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.


5. Taxi Driver

Directed by Martin Scorsese | Rated R | 113 min | 1976

A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge for violent action, attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute in the process.


6. Apocalypse Now

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola | Rated R | 153 min | 1979

During the Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade colonel who has set himself up as a god among a local tribe.


7. The Godfather

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola | Rated R | 175 min | 1972

The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.


8. Vertigo

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock | Rated PG | 128 min | 1958

A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.


9. The Mirror

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky | Rated N/A | 108 min | 1975

A dying man in his forties remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments and things that tell of the recent history of all the Russian nation.


10. Bicycle Thieves

Directed by Vittorio De Sica | 89 min | 1948

Set in Post-WWII Italy, a working class man's bicycle is stolen. He and his son set out to find it.